Residents, cyclists and public works officials gathered for a community workshop at the Nobel Recreation Center on May 29 to zero in on the most preferred route for 10 miles of proposed multi-use bike paths spanning from Carmel Valley Road to Gilman Drive. The 10-mile segment is part of the greater Coastal Rail Trail project, which is intended to connect the region’s coastal cities and improve bicycle mobility throughout the region.

“The regional bike plan has some overarching goals,” said Chris Carterette, active transportation planner at the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). “The primary one is to increase the number of people riding bikes — of all ages and abilities — and try to develop a more safe network.”

The vision includes the creation of what Carterette calls “complete” streets — ones that are beneficial for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike from Oceanside to downtown San Diego.

The cities of Oceanside, Del Mar, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach and San Diego have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to design and construct segments of the trail within each of their own jurisdictions. The 10-mile segment discussed at the public forum accounts for just the northern half of San Diego’s 20-mile commitment under the MOU.

The approximately 40-mile continuous corridor will utilize multi-use Class I, Class II and Class III bicycle facilities, among other innovative routes where needed. Although a 2000 SANDAG report initially proposed the project be a Class I facility running along the railroad right of way, certain constraints and opportunities may alter that original plan, said Mike Singleton, principal at KTU+A, consultant for the city.

“If we don’t have a Class I facility throughout like the original Coastal Rail Trail was proposing, we need to have a similar level of experience for the users of that trail system so they feel safe,” he said. “We need to look at a variety of types of facilities to actually make all these connections actually work.”

Additionally, certain constraints — including ADA compliance, environmentally sensitive areas and street volume and speed — must be considered, and interconnectivity opportunities to alternative modes of transportation, such as the proposed Mid-Coast Trolley line, Coaster stations and bus stops, must also be factored into the equation to determine the most appropriate route to connect the points.

“We’re trying to look at where the key points of interconnection are — where the ridership is, where our schools are and other activity centers that are primary destinations in University City,” said Mark Carpenter, senior associate at KTU+A. “There’s not a perfect route to interconnect everything. We’re just trying to look at the ones that we will get the most benefit from.”

Since fall 2012, a broad-based working group of community stakeholders, including representatives from community planning committees, the San Diego Bicycle Coalition, Friends of Rose Creek, Friends of Rose Canyon, UCSD and Walk San Diego, have identified potential corridors that should be evaluated for the multi-use facility.

The group evaluates criteria like user experience, connectivity, safety factors, environmental issues, community impact and costs to determine the most preferred alternative.

Participants at the workshop were tasked to voice their opinions about potential corridors that have not yet been identified or corridors that they disagree with.

“Our goal is to look at the whole range of alternatives and see what segments are there that we need to be using for these alternatives,” said Carpenter. “We’re looking at a full range of ideas. Nothing has been discounted at this time.”

The city’s technical team will use the input gathered from the workshop to make adjustments to the corridors and segments before bringing the options back to the working group in July. Once the working group shares its input about the revisions, preliminary draft alternatives will be shared in a second workshop, where the public will be asked to provide feedback on the more defined alternatives. If there is a clear preferred alternative, the selection will again be shared with the working group and the project will move forward to environmental analysis. The working group meetings are open to the public. Meeting dates will be posted on the city's website.

NEXT WORKSHOP JUNE 20

The public is invited to provide input on the Rose Creek bikeway portion of the Coastal Rail Trail project on June 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Mission Bay High School. The Coastal Rail Trail project is a 40-mile, inter-city system of multi-use paths that would extend from Oceanside to downtown San Diego. The project will connect major activity centers, including University City, Mission Bay and Pacific Beach.

The Rose Creek Bikeway Path project is a proposed Class I and Class II facility that will connect existing sections of the Rose Canyon and Rose Creek bike paths, filling a two-mile gap in the regional bike network.

Locally, the path would begin at the north end of Santa Fe Street and connect to the existing bike path at Damon Street and Mission Bay Drive near the Mike Gotch Memorial Bridge over the Rose Inlet.